NY: High-speed flywheel system under production test.

[skids]

Beacon Power Corporation (NASDAQ: BCON), a company that designs and develops advanced products and services to support more stable and reliable electricity grid operation, announced that it recently delivered, installed and connected a scale-power Smart Energy Matrix demonstration system to the electricity grid in Amsterdam, New York. After arriving at the site, the system was connected and turned up to full power, and is now following and responding to live ISO-specified requirements to demonstrate frequency regulation. The project, jointly funded by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Storage Program, is the second such scale-power system Beacon has delivered, in addition to a similar system in California.

...

"Building, delivering and successfully connecting this latest demonstration system is another major accomplishment by the Beacon engineering team," said Bill Capp, Beacon Power president and CEO. "This system in New York, together with the one that we already installed in California, will enable us to show the respective state energy agencies and regional grid operators how clean, reliable, and fast-responding flywheel energy storage has the potential to meet the demand for frequency regulation in these large and growing markets. Each state has its own performance requirements that our systems have been designed to meet. Results from both demonstrations will support Beacon's steady progress toward large-scale commercialization of our high-energy flywheels for frequency regulation."

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In contrast to the California unit, which was installed on PG&E's transmission system and is designed to respond to centrally dispatched command-and-control signals sent from the California ISO over a secure Internet link, the unit in New York was installed on the distribution side of the grid. It operates autonomously by reading and responding to frequency deviations measured directly from the grid. The ability to flexibly locate a Smart Energy Matrix on either the transmission or distribution side of the grid - and operate on a centrally dispatched or distributed basis - widens the potential market for frequency regulation services and other possible flywheel applications, including reactive power VAR support, transmission and distribution stabilization, and localized UPS.

http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=bcon&script=410&layout=-6&item_id=836465

Though, as an aside, that PG&E/ISOCA wouldn't have their own Intranet would be bothersome -- more likely the reporter is in error.

[benburch]

1. Flywheel storage is vastly superior to any electrochemical system.

No toxic lead or other heavy metals involved. No explosive hydrogen. A home power unit needs to be developed as the next step to photovoltaic self-sufficiency.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. They are around...

at the right sort of spec for home use, but cost ~$30k IIRC. They're mainly sold as high-capacity UPSes for business use: It's one area I'd like to see a bit more development in them to get the cost down, but then there's lots of things I'd like to see.

[skids]

3. These would actually fit home use, too.

They are arrays of 6kWh units. They have a 25kWh unit in the works. One of their slated uses, in addition to home power, is for renewable power backup for telecommunications huts.

They get buried under the ground surrounded by gravel/concrete so if there was some sort of mishap the shrapnel would be contained -- not a system for the amateur :-)

They weigh slightly more per unit energy than lead-acid, but that's about the only spec they fall short on -- other than price, which is not known at this point, probably due to the company not wanting to sticker shock anyone with a pre-mass-production price.

[benburch]

4. Home septic tanks get buried too...

I think this isn't an amazing burden.